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The Association of Milk and Dairy Consumption and Calcium Intake With the Risk and Severity of Prostate Cancer

  • Cancer (MF Leitzmann, Section Editor)
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Abstract

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in Western countries, but it is less common in East Asian populations. Diet and lifestyle are suspected to affect prostate cancer development. Milk and dairy products are consumed in different amounts worldwide depending on the degree of lactose tolerance in a population: consumption is traditionally high in Caucasian and low in Asian populations. Hence, several epidemiological studies examined the association of milk and dairy consumption and prostate cancer risk with ambiguous results, such that meta-analyses of cohort studies tend to show moderate positive associations, but also state that heterogeneity between studies is high due to the differences in dairy food types consumed and assessed in a study. In addition to dietary dairy intake, calcium, which is abundant in dairy products, also has been evaluated in relation to prostate cancer. Compared with dairy products, results for calcium tend to show stronger positive associations with prostate cancer risk, although associations are still heterogeneous. This is likely due to the varying amounts of calcium consumed in certain populations and varying sources of calcium, i.e., dairy versus nondairy sources. Because it is unclear whether calcium is responsible for the increase in prostate cancer risk, more research on potential biological mechanisms is necessary to establish a link with dairy products. These studies need to clarify whether calcium affects prostate cancer initiation or progression to identify how diet may potentially have an effect on early or late disease.

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Conflict of Interest

Sabine Rohrmann and Mieke Van Hemelrijck declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Chronic Disease Epidemiology, Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Prevention Institute (EBPI), University of Zurich, Hirschengraben 84, 8001, Zurich, Switzerland

    Sabine Rohrmann

  2. King’s College London, Division of Cancer Studies, Cancer Epidemiology Group, London, UK

    Mieke Van Hemelrijck

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  1. Sabine Rohrmann
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Correspondence to Sabine Rohrmann.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Cancer

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Rohrmann, S., Van Hemelrijck, M. The Association of Milk and Dairy Consumption and Calcium Intake With the Risk and Severity of Prostate Cancer. Curr Nutr Rep 4, 66–71 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13668-014-0106-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13668-014-0106-2

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